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Review from an Anonymous Developer [CA response]

Comments

Mainly Darth claimed he was able to modify BAI and CAI, however devs and many modders demonstrated that was not possible (I said AI, not balancing).
This was the case for Medieval II and Shogun.

@ davek : I'm registered at TWC since RTW. I had not forget the mess about Empire, but I have seen many modders before it arrived and many others after.

Then for good modders I won't write names, that makes no sense. This idea that Darth would be the only one although there are tons of modder at TWC really skilled who makes breakthrough for modding is just being a fanboy, not an experienced developper.
For really good mods have a lookt at : The Great War, Imperial Splendour, Deus Lo Vult, Europa Barbarorum I and II, Stainless Steel... I just can not list all of them.
Italia Invicta was also really promising.

That's the second time you've mentioned him in a negative tone. What I do know is that his mods were the most downloaded, most popular, most comprehensive, and the most stable.

Feel free to name better modders with better mods, because I smell something personal.

Over on TWC forums there are a group of the same people who post negative stuff about Darth anytime they see a post praising what he done in the modding community its just sad, people have forgotten the mess Empire was it seems and how he improved it.

They're probably employing the power of silence--which apparently works over the long term. Short term--it's a big risk to say anything now, aside from talking up patches and support. Too much could go wrong.

Its a tried and tested method that I saw first hand while employed earlier in my career. The rage and anger subsides over time and if you keep responses to tech support it will die down.

Click on Trish's posts and you will see responses in Tech but almost nothing anywhere else.

I am 35 years old and i have played and bought all total war games since shogun 1.
I just signed in.
I was checking the forum for finding information on tactics and different issues,but never felt the need of writing anything.
I had a perfect,or nearly perfect game,always.

Total war series gave me all that i was dreaming of,back when i was 18 and i was playing age of empires 1.
I was dreaming of a big map,a tactical battle in a real life terrain..
And there was a year or so later shogun!!What a feeling!What an excitement it was!Awesome!
Then it became better and there was medieval!
And when rome came out it completely blew my mind!!

With the great modders of dartmod,europa barbarorum and so on,i continued playing the game for years and years!!
I spent also many many hours-days-months with mtw2,empire,napoleon,and shogun2.

Every time the next game was better than the previous.

So,last year i got the news of the sequel to Rome!
I was so so excited!I couldnt wait for the game to be released!

Since ca returned to melle combat with shogun2 with such a great result,i had great expectations for Rome 2.
I thought it could be the greatest game ever!
And why shoudnt be?They always improved from one game to the next!

I preorder,counting the days.
And finally tuesday i got it!
Great excitement!

I installed it,and played a custom battle first.
I could not believe what was happening on the screen...
It was a battle far worst than the battles in shogun 1..
It was reminding me of age of empires..

Campaign AI??A joke...And numerous other bugs and issues that have been written by angry fans in this forum again and again.

How could this have happened?!?
Why am i here posting something that nobody from ca will notice 2 days after the release of the game??
Why am i not playing the game in full excitement right now?

The answer to this is probably your post.
And its probably sega to blame for what we got.

A big corporation thinking only about how to make a game to be more casual,easy to play for the broader audiences and for the younger generation of xbox and the rest of the consoles,bringing more profits.
What if the game was not tested properly?They dont care,they had a release date and profits calculated,starting from 3/9.

Obviously someone from the development team must have stated that they needed more time..But it was probably out of the question...You have a deadline for release and that is 3/9,do what you can..

So?What happens next?Is there still hope?

Personally i dont believe that ca will fix the game with one,two,one hundred patches up to what i expected.
There so many fundamental issues wrong with this game that i dont believe they will accept defeat and erase them all.
The cannot just simply remove the open battle flag,bring back the family tree etc etc.

So my hope is to the modders.
But will they have all the necessary tools to transfom this game from such a catastrophy to a triumph??
And how much time will they need?Are they up to??
Is there still hope???

You don't understand the move? Well to give you an idea, we considered doing the same with the first title. We wanted more money, plain and simple but worked out that it was too complex to port it.

More money, fair enough. I just didn't realize there was so much crossover in that market for this type of game, I would have thought the majority of the fan base for this type of game was still heavily on the PC. But then again they might just be marketing to a different - larger - market.

I believe it's just a matter of days, until we receive a well patched hotfix and tweaks from CA.

the problem here I just don't ******g understand, is why release a game without closed, open beta ?

there are a thousand games out there as we speak. they ALL opened betas to not obtain all those rage game problems that rome 2 is now experiencing. also, now I see why the content was limited before release. they were so strict for not showing the core of the game.

seriously, this right here is a sloppy work from a company. Yes they are known for successful series. but that does not mean they have to go all sloppy.

Do you think that's the reason for the product we received? Did they invest too much of their resources on the new Warhammer game instead of polishing Rome II? Is it common for dev teams to switch too early and have that impact the finished product of the first game?

I can't comment with any certainty however I think the reason we've got this release the way it is, is because it wasn't tested properly and CA went in a more mainstream casual direction. This game needed another 6months minimum.

I believe it's just a matter of days, until we receive a well patched hotfix and tweaks from CA.

the problem here I just don't ******g understand, is why release a game without closed, open beta ?

there are a thousand games out there as we speak. they ALL opened betas to not obtain all those rage game problems that rome 2 is now experiencing. also, now I see why the content was limited before release. they were so strict for not showing the core of the game.

I believe it's just a matter of days, until we receive a well patched hotfix and tweaks from CA.

the problem here I just don't ******g understand, is why release a game without closed, open beta ?

there are a thousand games out there as we speak. they ALL opened betas to not obtain all those rage game problems that rome 2 is now experiencing. also, now I see why the content was limited before release. they were so strict for not showing the core of the game.

Because people can't be trusted, they leak information. Tho CA did make it how they wanted.

They knew both flags in battles and the current battle speed where no no's about 3 month ago. But it was how they wanted it, not that it's realistic.

Mainly Darthmod claimed he could modify BAI and CAI, however devs and many modders demonstrated that was not possible (I said AI, not balancing).

Exactly - e.g. Lusted.

Then for good modders I won't write names, that makes no sense. This idea that Darth would be the only one although there are tons of modder at TWC really skilled that make breakthrough for modding is just being a fanboy, not an experienced developper.

Mainly Darth claimed he was able to modify BAI and CAI, however devs and many modders demonstrated that was not possible (I said AI, not balancing).
This was the case for Medieval II and Shogun.

@ davek : I'm registered at TWC since RTW. I had not forget the mess about Empire, but I have seen many modders before it arrived and many others after.

Then for good modders I won't write names, that makes no sense. This idea that Darth would be the only one although there are tons of modder at TWC really skilled who makes breakthrough for modding is just being a fanboy, not an experienced developper.
For really good mods have a lookt at : The Great War, Imperial Splendour, Deus Lo Vult, Europa Barbarorum I and II, Stainless Steel... I just can not list all of them.
Italia Invicta was also really promising.

Lol. I don't think it's Darth. His grammar and punctuation are way better than Darth's. I was thinking he works on Arma team when he said smaller than CA, but I'm not exactly sure how big the Arma team is. Could just be one of those non-mainstream war game devs though. There's so many of those games. It would've been cool if he said which one exactly, but unless he was part of a major mainstream franchise people would've attacked him like scumbags on that simple fact as if they could make better. So it's probably best he stayed anonymous.

You speak absolute truth though, OP. I personally believe no one should work for Sega if they can help it. There's a reason they almost disappeared from the gaming world after the Dreamcast bombed. They haven't produced something amazing since Sega Genesis. Obsolete thinking and business management skills. That's the best way to describe them.

Because people can't be trusted, they leak information. Tho CA did make it how they wanted.

They knew both flags in battles and the current battle speed where no no's about 3 month ago. But it was how they wanted it, not that it's realistic.

The forums were spammed with complaints about battle speed every time a new video came out showing battle footage and here we are after release with the battles pretty much as fast as those videos which they said would be toned down. All developers from most major franchises have a God complex these days, they know whats good and what isnt and screw the customer.

I agree. (I have no special industry knowledge, just an avid fan.) I suspect CA folks aren't happy, but they ran out of time on their contract and had to release for Q3 as promised some time ago. Some elements feel like placeholders that never got updated.

"[A]ges of siege warfare culminated in the use of torches. It is simply not plausible." Garbarsardar

I'm not a modder from warscape engine, so you do not know me. Although I concur with what the one you have in mind says at TWC.
But here we are.

I'm not personnaly judging you, just I think this painful to always hear "Darthmod" as a magical word. It doesn't help modding. Darth did great things, but he is not entire TW modding.
TW modding is interesting because of that whole souk of mods we have at TWC, not thanks to one mod.
Darthmod is just adding some colors to a decent hair-cut, while other mods created their haircut, that's the thing, and that's why it is not at all representative to the whole modding community.

More money, fair enough. I just didn't realize there was so much crossover in that market for this type of game, I would have thought the majority of the fan base for this type of game was still heavily on the PC. But then again they might just be marketing to a different - larger - market.

Thanks for your opinion.

I'd rather be honest lol it was the money.

Its the way things are going. For many reasons. Think about the first group of issues.....with one console comes one system and little to no bugs, glitches, or system variation problems.